Monday, September 30, 2013

NBC Sports Network is dumping the show that featured a guy shooting an elephant in the face.
The show—hosted by NRA lobbyist Tony Makris—isn't being canceled for
that episode with the elephant shooting, exactly (though that didn't help). Instead it's because Makris compared his critics to Hitler earlier this week.
He said of his supposed critics: "And now they're shocked. And they
said but they're so big and special and they're smarter. And I went, you
know, Hitler would have said the same thing." That didn't go over well.

Of course, given that NBC Sports Network is the home of the English Premier League (up yours Barclays!) they could have given him a competition show where the power of his arsenal is compared to the strength of Luis Suarez's chompers.

The Republican Party, now run by the crazy uncle who sends you the emails that keeps Snopes.Com in business, has not yet begun to have a fit.

Undeterred, House Republicans pressed ahead with their latest attempt to squeeze a concession from the White House in exchange for letting the government open for business normally on Tuesday. "Obamacare is based on a limitless government, bureaucratic arrogance and a disregard of a will of the people," said Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind.

Another Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, reacted angrily when asked whether he would eventually support a standalone spending bill if needed to prevent a shutdown. "How dare you presume a failure? How dare you? How dare you?" he said.

Well "open meltdown" is an interesting tactic. But I guess it just goes with the program.

If only Hitler had limited his atrocities to people of color (a model Mussolini wanted followed) he'd have had been left alone by the west for a long career as German Chancellor -- and probably have Ann Coulter write a book full of faulty footnotes to praise him.

Friday, September 27, 2013

I do not do a whole lot of media commentary, because "who gives a shit, right?" but I'm glad "Bob's Burgers" was renewed for an additional year before this year's season even starts.
For those of you looking for a well-written show to binge upon on Netflix, you cannot do much better.

Qatar's construction frenzy ahead of the 2022 World Cup is on course to cost the lives of at least 4,000 migrant workers before a ball is kicked, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has claimed.
The group has been scrutinising builders' deaths in the Gulf emirate for the past two years and said that at least half a million extra workers from countries including Nepal, India and Sri Lanka are expected to flood in to complete stadiums, hotels and infrastructure in time for the World Cup kickoff.
The annual death toll among those working on building sites could rise to 600 a year – almost a dozen a week – unless the Doha government makes urgent reforms, it says.

Former congressman Allen West, who was hustled out of the military before being hustled out of Congress after one term, is now also leaving his job at right-wing news outlet PJ Media. And this time the tireless Israel supporter is being accused of anti-Semitism.
BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray reports that West is out as director of programming for PJ Media's NextGeneration.TV. Gray's sources tell her West was fired after getting into an argument in which he called an employee a "Jewish American Princess" and told her to "shut up."

"Hey, America, this is the NSA, remember that time we listened in on you as you called that 900 number and used your passwords to that porn site you like? Yeah, good times right? Remember how we're pals?"

The day before he is to begin a series of public hearings on Capitol Hill, [Director of the NSA General Keith] Alexander said in a speech at the National Press Club: “We need your help.
“The American people have to weigh in and help us get the tools we need to defend this country,” Alexander said.

Hey, maybe a new control room that looks more like Joss Wheden's Enterprise instead of Gene Roddenberry's will do the trick?
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Thursday, September 26, 2013

"We have some real opportunities in 2014," Hickey said Tuesday. "This is
a great year in an off-presidential election. Seemingly no Democrat on
the top of the ticket against [Gov. Brian] Sandoval. No Harry Reid.
Probably where we had a million voters turn out in 2012, we'll have like
700,000. A lot of minorities, a lot of younger people will not turn out
in a non-presidential. It's a great year for Republicans."

In an interview Wednesday shortly after his 21-hour talkathon to defund Obamacare had come to an end, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) lamented to shock jock Rush Limbaugh that too many lawmakers think their constituents are naive.

"They think their voters are gullible rubes," Cruz said in the radio interview.

And then they hit the cough button had a good laugh and muttered "thank goodness".

2. The Amazon is so long it not only flows through much of South America...but also half-way around the world, through the Pacific and into New Guinea (logically even were this true, I have the technicalities of the river's flow wrong, but in the spirit of the article just go with it).

Oh, and a bit of research reveals what the Huffington Post apparently could not suspect well enough (New Guinea and Amazon and no suspicion at all, huh?) that this "testicle-biting" is all a big ole hoax.

Our wealthy gamers of the system, always the first to decry "victimology" unless, of course, you are their victim.

The uproar over bonuses “was intended to stir public anger, to get
everybody out there with their pitch forks and their hangman nooses, and
all that-sort of like what we did in the Deep South [decades ago]. And I
think it was just as bad and just as wrong.

Other than lynchings ACTUALLY happening; and being a group of people deprived of political power and wealth it is so strikingly similar.

If you are in the country imposing it on others, it can help you get re-elected.

Chancellor Angela Merkel scored a stunning personal triumph in Sunday’s national elections in Germany, becoming the only major leader to be re-elected twice since the financial crisis of 2008 and winning strong popular endorsement for her mix of austerity and solidarity in managing troubled Europe.

Golden Dawn, which has seen its popularity soar on the back of debt-stricken Greece's worst crisis in modern times, has not only set up a military wing but is actively training its members in the art of combat.
"In Golden Dawn we have an entire military structure with at least 3,000 people ready for everything," one member was quoted as saying by the Sunday Vima newspaper. Pictures of recruits in camouflage and balaclavas conducting night exercises in clandestine camps were published in another leading daily on Monday. The paper, Ethnos, claimed the men, some of who were armed with knives and wooden clubs, were being trained by members of Greece's elite special forces who sympathise with the ultra-nationalist party.

Monday, September 23, 2013

George Zimmerman is in hiding now to avoid being served with the divorce
papers that Shellie filed -- which is hindering the proceedings and
therefore putting a damper on her plans to end their marriage.

They'll keep a company with a long history of supporting/encouraging/covering up human rights abuses without worries.

Faced with potentially billions of dollars in legal liability,
Chiquita Brands International is asking a federal appeals court to block
lawsuits filed against it in the U.S. by thousands of Colombians whose
relatives were killed in that country's bloody, decades-long civil war.

The
produce giant, which long had huge banana plantations in Colombia, has
admitted paying a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group $1.7 million
over a seven-year period. The Charlotte, N.C.-based company insists it
was blackmailed into paying or risking violence against its own
operations and employees, although in 2007 Chiquita pleaded guilty to
U.S. criminal charges that it had supported terrorists. It paid a $25
million fine.

This is EXACTLY the sort of case the "Corporations are the LOVELIEST PEOPLE in the WORLD" crowd in black robes wish to come before them.

On Oct. 8, the Supreme Court will take up an appeal from the Republican National Committee, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon, who say contributions should be treated as "core political speech." If they win, wealthy Republicans or Democrats could each give as much as $3.6 million total by giving the maximum amount to all of their party committees and candidates. This money could be funneled by party leaders into a close race or races, tipping the balance of power in Congress.

Defenders of the election laws have been sounding the alarm. "It would be terrible for our democracy … if one politician could directly solicit $3.6 million from a single donor," said Lawrence Norden, an election law expert with the Brennan Center, a liberal legal advocacy group in New York. "That is 70 times the median income for an American family. It would mean a tiny, tiny group of donors would wield unprecedented power and influence."

Or, as the conservatives on the Roberts' Court will almost certainly think of it...an awesome idea.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Would have made for a very special episode of the Andy Griffith Show...like when Opie killed a bird.

A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time
by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically
close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.

The document,
obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the
Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the
US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two
Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North
Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber
broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a
nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened,
its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch
prevented untold carnage.

Each bomb carried a payload of 4
megatons – the equivalent of 4 million tons of TNT explosive. Had the
device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city –
putting millions of lives at risk.

Though there has been
persistent speculation about how narrow the Goldsboro escape was, the US
government has repeatedly publicly denied that its nuclear arsenal has
ever put Americans' lives in jeopardy through safety flaws. But in the
newly-published document, a senior engineer in the Sandia national
laboratories responsible for the mechanical safety of nuclear weapons concludes that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe".

Of course, if North Carolina residents were able to possess their own nuclear weapons...like the NRA would like, this would never have even been possible.

Friday, September 20, 2013

A group of House Republicans, led by Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID),
has proposed a new bill that would provide a nationwide “license to
discriminate” against married same-sex couples. Though Labrador claims
the bill protects “religious liberty,” it is nothing less than a blanket
invitation to deny benefits to same-sex couples that they are entitled
to under law.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Have been pleasantly surprised so far...I will certainly enjoy watching folks like Dolan and even further right-wing clerics have to prevaricate now.

Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old
papacy, said that the Roman Catholic church had grown “obsessed” with
preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he
has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some
critics.

In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the
church, saying it should be a “home for all” and not a “small chapel”
focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings.

First of all, it is a marvel that Phil Gengry of Georgia HAS employment, let alone this:

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), who's running for Senate in Georgia,
complained that while his staff can jump to K Street and make $500,000 a
year by lobbying, he's "stuck" in Congress making a bare $172,000 a
year.

The comments, relayed by congressional aides to National Review, came during a closed door meeting among Congressional Republicans on Obamacare.

Yesterday it was noted that Iran's government was open to negotiations and compromises in its nuclear program vis-a-vis the United States -- this, of course, is potentially bad news to America's only "serious" people -- aspiring war criminals.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday he's working on legislation that would give the president the green light to attack Iran if negotiations over the country's alleged nuclear weapons program stall.
Graham, one of the GOP's most prominent hawks, told reporters on Tuesday that he's worried the administration's failure to get congressional approval for a strike against Syria has emboldened Iran.

I admit I haven't reviewed my Hugo Grotius' rules of "just wars" lately, but I'm pretty sure being accused of "feelin' good" is not in there.

But kudos to Lindsey, he's demanding his happy ending -- even if it is just for him. He's just that much of a "Statesmen" -- or so Chuck Todd will allow.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given the clearest signal yet that the country's newly elected president and moderate cleric, Hassan Rouhani, has the authority to conduct direct talks with the US and offer compromises in nuclear talks.

I dunno if Bill Kristol, John McCain, or David Ignatius will be able to stand it...the public getting more of this whole non-war policy it seems to favor so sensibly.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Police
in Indiana say a Michigan City man accidentally shot and killed a child
in his care while playing a dangerous "gun game" with the boy.

Zachariah
L. Grisham, 24, was arrested an charged with neglect and reckless
homicide following the death of his girlfriend's son, 3-year-old Lance
Wilson, this past Sunday.

According
to Det. Sgt. Andy Hynek of the La Porte County Sheriff's Department the
"gun game" Grisham would often play with Lance consisted of the boy
pointing a finger gun at Grisham, followed by Grisham pointing his real
gun at Lance and pulling the trigger.

Grisham told authorities he forget he had loaded the gun earlier that day.

As we try to sort through the actual biography of our country's latest mass shooter, Aaron Alexis, the fact of gun violence continues to be plain...and plainly ignored.

The largest study of gun violence in the United States, released Thursday afternoon, confirms a point that should be obvious: widespread American gun ownership is fueling America’s gun violence epidemic...
...the authors ran a series of regressions to see what effect the overall national decline in firearm ownership from 1981 to 2010 had on gun homicides. The result was staggering: “for each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of household gun ownership,” Siegel et al. found, “firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9″ percent. A one standard deviation change in firearm ownership shifted gun murders by a staggering 12.9 percent.

Not that we'll ever be allowed to do anything about it...after all the only words in the Constitution that mean nothing are "well regulated".
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Nina Davuluri has been hit with Twitter
abuse after becoming the first woman of Indian descent to be crowned
Miss America.
After her victory in Atlantic City, the 24-year-old beauty queen, who
was born in Syracuse, New York, and is believed to be a practising
Hindu, said: "I'm so happy this organisation has embraced diversity.

I know it is hard to believe but having those who defrauded America
get off any punishment as they whine about taxes does not mean they are
anyone's heroes...outside of those who theoretically govern them.

The poll of more than 1,400 adults, representing a
cross-section of the U.S. population, shows that half of the
respondents believe there has not been enough reform to prevent a future
crisis.
As many as 44 percent of those polled believe the government should not
have bailed out financial institutions, while only 22 percent thought it
was the right move. Fifty-three percent think not enough was done to
prosecute bankers; 15 percent were satisfied with the effort.

Friday, September 13, 2013

New Treasury Department figures confirm what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected in the spring: the budget deficit for fiscal year 2013 will be dramatically lower than it was the past four years. The government recorded a $148 billion deficit in August, 22.5 percent smaller than in the same month of 2012, and is on track to total a $642 billion annual deficit when the fiscal year ends on September 30.

Nonetheless, the call to cut programs to help the poor and middle class will continue...along with calls for tax cuts for the wealthy.

Back when Jimmy Carter was President (and I remember that) a spacecraft, one of two, was launched to take advantage of the alignment of the solar sytem's gas giants; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The first of those, Voyager I has been determined to have left the solar system. The first human-made object to have done so.
In many ways a poignant moment.
And, just to let you know the practicalities of space travel...it only took 36 years at 11 miles a second.

Although it will also someday be responsible for a really boring Star Trek film.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

A progressive theological current that emphasizes the Catholic
Church’s closeness to the poor and the marginalized but was subject to
decades of hostility and censure is now finding increasing favor in the
Vatican under Pope Francis.

Francis, who has called for “a poor church for the poor,” will meet
in the next few days with the Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian
theologian and scholar who is considered the founder of liberation
theology.

The meeting was announced on Sunday (Sept. 8) by Archbishop Gerhard
Ludwig Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, during the launch of a book he
co-authored with Gutierrez.

It’s a remarkable about-face for a movement that swelled in
popularity but was later stamped out by the conservative pontificates of
John Paul II and his longtime doctrinal czar, Benedict XVI.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

I guess "hey they are eight times more likely to be assholes!" is a kind of argument for blowing shit up...though not the greatest.

At least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by President
Bashar Assad's regime and supporters and one by rebels over the past
year and a half, a U.N. commission said Wednesday.

The commission's probe highlights the worsening pattern of violence
against civilians, including executions and hospital bombings, as the
government battles to retake lost territory from the rebels, including
Islamist foreign fighters who also have carried out war crimes.

"The perpetrators of these violations and crimes, on all
sides, act in defiance of international law. They do not fear
accountability. Referral to justice is imperative," says the report by
the U.N. commission investigating human rights abuses in Syria.

The report updates the commission's work since 2011 to mid-July,
stopping short of what the United States says was an Aug. 21 chemical
weapons attack on rebel-held areas that killed hundreds of civilians.

Senor Danger received only 5% of the votes in the New York mayoral primary last night (the five-percent who like their politician's literally pants-less). It is a tough morning for him, now a metaphorical dick pic forever more, but also for those of us who like to make smart-assed asides without too much intellectual effort.

Oh well, I'm sure Sarah Palin has already said or tweeted a half-dozen stupidities already this morning, so there's still that.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

And not really all that comforting. A high ranking NSA official...and serial 4th Amendment violator woos Congress.

When he was running the Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Alexander brought many of his future allies down to Fort Belvoir for a tour of his base of operations, a facility known as the Information Dominance Center. It had been designed by a Hollywood set designer to mimic the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, complete with chrome panels, computer stations, a huge TV monitor on the forward wall, and doors that made a "whoosh" sound when they slid open and closed. Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather "captain's chair" in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen.
"Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard," says a retired officer in charge of VIP visits.

White House officials say they will “take a hard look” at a Russian offer to push Syria to give up its vast chemical weapons arsenal, a late and unexpected proposal that could provide President Obama a way to avoid a bruising defeat in Congress over use of force.

Yeah, the saving grace is no longer "avoid killing people", it's "avoid a bruising" political defeat.
Because that's the important thing in the equation I guess.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Monday, September 09, 2013

Tea party-backed Representatives Michele Bachmann
(R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) on Saturday held a
press conference in Egypt to thank the country’s military for
overthrowing the elected government, and at one point even seemed to
suggest that the Muslim Brotherhood had been behind the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks in the United States.

“Together, we’ve gone through suffering. Together, the United States
and Egypt, have dealt with the same enemy,” Bachmann explained. “It’s a
common enemy, and it’s an enemy called terrorism.”

“We want to make sure that you have the Apache helicopters, the
F-16s, the equipment that you have so bravely used to capture terrorists
and to take care of this menace that’s on your border,” she continued.
“Many of you have asked, do we understand who the enemy is? We can speak
for ourselves. We do.”…

During Saturday’s press conference, Gohmert praised Egyptian
coup-leader General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi by comparing him to U.S.
President George Washington.

“We met with for a long meeting General el-Sissi and many of the
military leaders, and my friend Steve King mentioned again about our
heritage in America,” he explained. “George Washington, doing what no
one had ever done before him, led a military in revolution, won the
revolution, and then resigned and went home.”….

On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day
armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property,
he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges
of his 76 years hauled to the curb.

Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next
came the things that were closest to his heart: his Marine Corps medals
and photographs of his dead wife, Martha. The duplex in Northeast
Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied
and shuttered. By sundown, he had nowhere to go.

As we debate the issue of whether causing mass civilian deaths with the use of chemical weapons demands a military response, the conventional weapons' infliction of mass civilian death goes on and on and on.

Afghan officials have said an apparent Nato air strike has killed 15 people – nine of them civilians, including women and children – in an eastern province where the Taliban remain strong. Nato said 10 militants had died in the strike, and that it had no reports of any civilian deaths.

Civilian deaths in Nato operations have long been a sore point between the Afghan government and the US-led troops in the country, and they have been a major factor in the animosity many Afghans feel towards foreign forces.

Hearts and minds are often harder to win when other hearts and minds are blown away via fiery death from the sky.
But I'm sure nothing will ever come of it, right?

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Democrat Terry McAuliffe has opened up a seven-point lead over Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli as the Virginia gubernatorial race enters the post-Labor Day stretch.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Virginia Voters finds McAuliffe with 45% support to Cuccinelli's 38%. Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, while 10% remain unsure.

Saturday, September 07, 2013

Dr. John Santelli, a professor of population and family health at
Columbia University who was not connected to the government study, told NBC News
that the 2012 figures represent “a considerable one year drop.” But
Santelli also noted that isn’t because there’s been much change in
teenagers’ sexual activity over the past decade. There aren’t fewer
adolescents having sex, and there aren’t an increased number of
abortions being performed.

“What we have seen is greater availability of much more effective birth control methods,” Santelli explained. Particularly as more medical professionals have been recommending long-lasting forms of contraception to their teenage patients, Santelli believes more adolescents have been able to take effective steps to avoid pregnancy.

“This stunning turnaround in teen birth represents one of the
nation’s great success stories of the past two decades,” Bill Albert,
the chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and
Unplanned Pregnancy, told U.S. News & World Report.
“This report shows that significant progress can and has been made on a
very challenging social problem that many once considered both
unsolvable and inevitable.”

Friday, September 06, 2013

How do you prevent someone from wasting electricity? The same way you prevent them from picking their nose—make them think they are being watched.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers wanted to see whether the Hawthorne effect could be used to change energy-use patterns. The Hawthorne effect refers to the way people tend to alter their behavior when they sense they are being observed. The effect can be a pain in the ass for scientists trying to study human behavior, but it can also be a powerful tool for influencing that behavior.

They also want to watch fetish porn with you since you seem to enjoy it so much.

While the Senate appears poised to come to some type of agreement, the "People's House," as it is known, is showing much more reluctance to approve the deeply unpopular bombing resolution. "Peace may well have a chance," said one top House GOP aide.
Public opinion surveys have been reflected in the outpouring of calls, emails and letters that have flooded House offices, running, say lawmakers, at more than 9 to 1 against intervention. The opposition spans the political spectrum.

And, despite Congress being infected with a large variety of yahoos who cannot tell the difference between the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments (and have no understanding of either) perhaps there is about to be a stumbling into military actions following the guidelines the Founders intended.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Thursday, September 05, 2013

About the latest "surgical strike" that won't backfire no matter what plan -- it does have the ability to bring out how much worse the nation's position could be.

Graham has been careful to distance himself from Obama, calling on the
president to “up his game” and charging that Syria is “the most
mismanaged situation I’ve ever seen since World War II when they were
trying to to control the Nazis.”

Try not to think too hard in unpacking the logical and historical fallacies in that sentence, lest you just give up thinking in favor of drinking.

Revelations of a U.S. spy program that allegedly allows digital surveillance of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico have drawn cries of indignation and anger in both nations, but the fallout may be strongest for U.S.-Brazil relations.
At stake is whether Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff will cancel a planned state visit to Washington in October, the first offered by President Barack Obama this year

A State Dinner would also be at stake. The spying of the NSA has not yet hit home in the Beltway, but when Sally Quinn cannot have an empanada across the table from an discomfitted Pele and Gisele Bundchen there is going to be hell to pay.

So this one is a conundrum, can a country be physically abused if the government consents? Probably not.

A project that would use cyanide to mine gold and silver has prompted thousands of Romanians to protest.
The planned mine, near the small town of Rosia Montana would be Europe's largest open-pit mine. Its four pits are estimated to total more than 8 kilometres in diameter and would be visible from space.
The government last week approved a draft law that would allow the project to move forward if passed by parliament. The $7.5-billion project is controlled by a Canadian company, with Romania's government holding a 25 per cent stake...

"Four pits" means the destruction of four mountains by the way. The area is also full of historical ruins from the Roman Imperial period -- oh and people, lots of people who will get jobs of some modest quality in exchange for working or living near an environmental ruin offset by the copious application of cyanide.

I read over the long weekend that Mary Matalin, of all people (that should just be her name, "Mary Matalin of All People...") was demanding the Obama Administration have an "exit strategy" in regard to Syria.
And while I must disrespectfully agree, it does make me wonder how she suddenly discovered this idea, because it hasn't been demanded by a Republican in years. For example...

Afghanistan's police and army are losing too many men in battle, and may need up to five more years of western support before they can fight independently, the top US and Nato commander in the country has told the Guardian.
General Joseph Dunford also said in an interview that it was too early to judge whether Nato had been right to end combat operations in Afghanistan this spring.

"AMERICA: Even our existing exit strategies, do not have an exit strategy."
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

Monday, September 02, 2013

"I am convinced that it (the chemical attack) is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to drag other countries into the Syrian conflict, and who want to win the support of powerful members of the international arena, especially the United States," Putin said.

So good to know that twerking is the biggest evil in the world, because otherwise I'd be concerned more about this:

Radiation levels around Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, Japanese authorities have warned.
Last week the plant's operator reported radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank into the ground.
It now says readings taken near the leaking tank on Saturday showed radiation was high enough to prove lethal within four hours of exposure.
The plant was crippled by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 millisieverts an hour.

So how were those readings so faulty?
...wait for it...

However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 millisieverts